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25 year-old Sun Danyong received 16 prototype iPhones from the assembly line at a Foxconn factory in China where he worked on Thursday, July 9th. An engineering graduate, Sun had landed a job handling product communications for Foxconn shortly after graduating. Within the following days Sun noticed that one of the prototype iPhones was missing. He reported the missing iPhone to his supervisor on Monday, July 13th.

By Wednesday Sun found himself in a lot of trouble. As we already know Apple tries to keep their prototypes and future models away from the public eye as much as possible. This secrecy is a tool Apple uses to build up suspense and surprise to increase the grandeur of product launches leading to more sales, more profit, etc etc. Knowing this Sun's employer, Foxconn (who makes Apples iPhones and iPods) took quick measures to ensure that the missing iPhone was found in order to protect Apple's secrets and their business relationship.

On Wednesday Sun's apartment was searched illegally by 3 Foxconn employees looking for the iPhone. There are also allegations floating around that Sun was detained and then physically abused during the investigation.

Finally around 3 a.m. on Thursday July 16th Sun jumped out the window of his apartment to his death.

Apple commented on the tragedy saying

We are saddened by the tragic loss of this young employee, and we are awaiting results of the investigations into his death. We require our suppliers to treat all workers with dignity and respect.

Unfortunately this kind of thing appears to happen frequently in China. According to Steven Lin, a Chinese blogger and marketer

Students [like Sun] have been studying in schools for years, and they have been carefully protected by their parents. They can’t endure such pressure - ‘their house being illegally searched,’ or ‘house arrests’ (if that’s true, according some reports news). Employees at these and other factories sometimes kill themselves simply because of the pressure from their daily jobs — you know what’s going to happen when they face more serious threats. Also, most young Chinese guys don’t have friends who are lawyers, so they don’t know how to protect themselves in the legal system. They won’t even look for help from the legal system. They will just endure the pressure, and finally find an extreme way to end all their troubles.